I think it’s pointed out more than once that WP is not wholly semantic publishing in terms of web standards – whether WP has done anything about it, or are doing so I have no idea.
In the same sense, I would be interested in knowing what it is you’re trying to prove? Are you wishing to debate WP claims of semantic publishing, or is the flippancy in your “mightier-than-thou” tone simply intended to stir things up?
Thread Starter
jgberg
(@jgberg)
Sorry, but don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to criticize WP – it is great! As being a newbie, I just want to find out if I overlooked a feature or something. It is advertized, so I think there must be something behind it!?
As far as I can see it’s just marketing speak. ‘Semantic’ is one of those words guaranteed to get the standards geeks on side, and it sounds vaguely impressive if you have no idea what it means. (All it means, of course, is ‘meaning’. It’s ironic that nine times out of ten it’s used in a meaningless way.)
By default (using the quicktags) WordPress uses <em> instead of <i> for emphasis; and <strong> instead of <b> for bold. It’s not much, but it’s a modest start toward introducing people to the importance of semantics in online publishing.
It would be quite an undertaking to throw newbies whole-hog into semantic publishing. I think it’s a reasonably idea that WordPress start small to gently introduce people to the topic. As the field gains mindshare, so too will WordPress grow to make it easier to use for folks.
You’re not alone. I’ve never understood what “semantic” meant in terms of computer software. Maybe someone can explain what it means to WordPress?
By default (using the quicktags) WordPress uses <em> instead of <i> for emphasis; and <strong> instead of <b> for bold. It’s not much, but it’s a modest start toward introducing people to the importance of semantics in online publishing.
Except it doesn’t. It says to them ‘<i> and <b> are bad, so you should use <em> and <strong> instead’. Which is true some of the time; but not always. If I quote something in another language it’s typographical convention to italicise it. That doesn’t mean I’m emphasising it, and if I mark it up as such that’s misleading. And I use <cite> for book and film titles because I’m not emphasising them either, but they still appear in italics.
My point is that semantic markup is the kind of subtle, subjective thing that you cannot automate (there are people, I have no doubt, who would disagree violently with the definitions above), and it’s beyond the scope of a blog tool to educate its users about it. By ‘automating’ the process it gives the impression that users don’t have to worry about these things. But this also tacitly encourages people to use semantic tags in a presentational way, which many proponents of meaningful markup would actually consider worse than using presentational tags in a semantic way.
I don’t know, maybe it’s a reference to the
<ul>s<h2>s in them.
